Mumbi Kaigwa wins lifetime achievement award

When Mumbi Kaigwa received an email from CEO magazine informing her she had been nominated for the “most influential woman [in Africa] in the arts and culture” award as well as the “lifetime achievement award” in the same category, she didn’t quite take the message seriously.

She had never heard of the South Africa-based magazine, CEO. She’d also received enough crank emails from online scam artists to take much time considering whether the email made sense or not.

But then, after a few weeks, she got another email telling her she’d been shortlisted out of the thousands of women nominated across the African region and requesting her to fill out the eight-page form attached and send it back to Johannesburg as soon as possible. She began to think the group was for real.

Still, Mumbi resisted taking the time to fill out the form, and only on the day before the deadline did she decide, “Why not do it and see what happens.”

For Mumbi, just listing a fraction of all she has achieved over the last 40 some odd years — since she first performed in a Wole Soyinka play on Voice of Kenya TV at age 10 — could easily impress anyone looking for an enterprising African woman with a remarkably rich and global career in the arts.

Mumbi is not only an actress who’s performed on stage and in film and television since she was a pre-teen, she’s also a stage producer and director who started two separate theatre companies — The Theatre Company in early 2000 and The Arts Canvas a decade after that.

ACCOMPLISHED PLAYWRIGHT

She’s an accomplished playwright whose scripts have led her to perform across the US, Europe, Asia and East Africa. She’s also run countless theatre and ‘role-play’ workshops, which have highlighted her concern for peace, conflict resolution and human rights across the region.

She’s been a dancer, painter, fashion model, and voice-over artist as well as having acted in a number of award-winning films such as The Constant Gardener and The First Grader.

Her most recent production, For Coloured Girls Who Considered Suicide, in which she co-starred and directed drew sell-out crowds to the Phoenix Theatre in August.

The list of her accomplishments goes on and on, so it’s no wonder that shortly after she sent in that eight-page form, she received word that she had definitely received both awards.

But it wasn’t until this past week, on September 17, that the crew from CEO magazine finally handed out two Lifetime Achievement awards to Kenyan women at the Jacaranda Hotel, one to Dr Miriam Were for her work in the health sector, the other to Mumbi for her wide-ranging work in the arts and culture in Africa.

“There were a number of other Kenyan women who received recognition in other categories,” said Mumbi, citing Tazim Elkington, Susan Mukebi, Wanjiku Kamau and Nuru Mugambi among others.

Personally, I know Mumbi is more than worthy of receiving such awards, but my feeling was that at her age, she is in her prime, with many more stories to tell.

“It hasn’t always been easy, but I’ll never regret taking that leap of faith,” she says of her leaving a lucrative job at the UN in 1999 to become a full-time performing artist.

“So many opportunities have opened up for me since I realised I could invent my own life. I think that’s why I won the award.”

SOURCE: The East African